A Battered Boat Drifts to Shore
by S.E. Mellark
Summary: The Last of Us AU. "Despite Alfred's quirks and the secrets hidden within his blood, the boy steadily managed to fill the void within Arthur that Peter left behind."


_Author's Note: _I don't think you understand how much I adore The Last of Us. Joel's relationship with Ellie destroys me inside, so of course I'm transferring those feels onto Arthur and Alfred. What can I say? I'm a masochist.

This is formatted differently than most of my other stores, and I'll try to make it so one can understand the situation without having played the game, but I'm not sure how it'll turn out. Just a fair warning!

_Disclaimer:_ I do not own Hetalia or The Last of Us and I most likely never will!

* * *

Parenthood used to be the biggest challenge any person would face in his or her life.

Children were expensive. When the little devils got jobs or moved away from home, it was like a long overdue pay raise.

They couldn't do a thing for themselves. They depended on their parents for every little thing, and there were years upon years of carpooling and shopping and hand holding at the dentist when the drill of metallic cleaning utensils became too much for their young minds to bear.

Fights were not uncommon. Children thought they were grown long before their time and couldn't understand the need for curfews and chore charts. They were the first to defy authority when caged, but given an ounce of freedom and they usually made sure never to abuse it.

It was a time of immense pressure and idealism fueled by a need to nurture the next generation to be greater than the last. The future was placed precariously in the sticky hands of children, and the adults had to prepare them for it.

Arthur would be the first to admit that he'd been wrong when he discouraged his son from playing more than two hours of video games per day. The ones concerning war, the ones about violence and death, were to be disposed of. Peter used to whine, said it was just for fun and sport and that he wasn't going to shoot up a super market, but Arthur would have none of it. Those video games wouldn't prepare his son for the real world, so he strove to decrease their value in Peter's mind.

He'd been wrong, horribly so. Those video games were a precursor to a world where the future didn't matter as much as the present did, where the most valuable skill was a happy trigger finger.

Parenting changed. It was no longer an art form and seen more as a burden, a nightmare in the waking world, and hardly anyone wanted any part in it. In an effort to find strength in numbers and one day take back their home, however, survivors, compatible or not, were "encouraged" to conceive at least twice. It didn't seem to matter if there was a food shortage. Even if couples were forced to have children, they would receive no help when it came to keeping them fed.

Arthur saw children, and he saw miniature soldiers. They followed orders down to the syllable, and most had no idea what a video game even was. They learned to hold a gun before learning to read and write. Even in a quarantine zone, toddlers ran drills together while their parents looked on critically. The ones that fell were scolded, those standing tall praised.

Arthur would never know the struggle of raising a child in a world ruled by the infected, for he had lost his own son right at the start of it all.

He had never managed to be grateful for what many would call a convenience. The price, in Arthur's opinion, had been much too heavy.

* * *

"Son of a – " Arthur slammed the butt of the rifle he'd swiped off someone's body down on the head of his assailant. The man's body crumpled to the ground with a dull thud, and Arthur spat blood from his busted lip onto the ground, tossing the gun soon after.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Francis poked his head out of the back room where they'd been heading when they were ambushed. The Frenchman had stormed guns blazing into the room while Arthur cleared out the surrounding area. "Treat that with care. We could use it!"

Arthur straightened out his jacket before patting himself down for injuries. A few of his ribs were most likely bruised, though thankfully none seemed to be broken. "I refuse to use a rifle to shoot people as if I were a morally corrupt poacher. I'll stick to my pistol, thank you."

"Then we can sell it for more of these." Francis insisted, holding up the bundle of ration cards, the reason they'd entered the building in the first place. If anyone wanted to eat inside the quarantine zone, they would have to have one of those. Arthur felt the area around his left eye twitch. "Really, Arthur, use your head."

"Use my head? Like you did when you rushed into this bloody building without clearing the area completely? We could've died for a handful of ration cards!"

"But," Francis said, holding up a finger as he picked his way around the bodies, dead or otherwise, littering the ground, "we did not. I consider this a job well done."

Arthur sniffed, spitting more blood onto the ground. "Well, I don't. I think Ivan set us up."

Ivan was the leader of the underground dealership in their zone. Arthur had known the man for years, almost since the start of this entire ordeal, and he knew that even if he and Francis were Ivan's go-to smugglers, the man wouldn't hesitate to wipe them out if he considered them a threat in any way.

"Everything is a conspiracy." Francis sighed piteously, and Arthur jerked away when the other man reached out to pat his shoulder. "These men were squatters, nothing more. I could smell the desperation on them."

"And yet you killed every single one of them that came at you. Brilliant."

"But of course. Kill or be killed, _mon ami_. If they had known about the ration cards Ivan's man had hidden here, we would be on the wrong end of the deal, and no one wants that."

Arthur couldn't disagree, though he wanted to badly. To be honest, it was still a mystery to him why he'd even paired up with the annoying man in the first place. When they met six years ago, Francis had nearly been a victim of Arthur's paranoia, and had just barely talked his way out of the situation when Arthur had a knife to his throat.

Francis had told Arthur that when the outbreak began, he'd been visiting from France. Unable to return home after the airports shut down in an effort to keep the sickness from spreading, Francis had wandered across the country without a group to keep him safe. If one was not a US citizen, there would be absolutely no admittance into a quarantine zone, and without a zone in which to hide from the infected, Francis was a dead man.

Years of struggling to get by and trusting no one had hardened Arthur, but he'd decided to let Francis live for whatever reason. He'd been on a mission for Ivan outside their zone at the time, so killing wasn't his main priority. Francis had provoked his sympathies, and Arthur smuggled the man into his quarantine zone where Ivan had faked credentials for him.

Now Arthur was pretty much stuck with the man whose life he'd saved, but it worked out for the better in the end. Francis was an asset when faced with hostile humans or ferocious clickers. The man was a self-proclaimed pretty boy, but behind his charming features, he was fairly sadistic.

Arthur would rather have no one else watching his back than Francis.

"Best get the cards back to Ivan." Arthur sighed. "But if this happens again, we have to take care of him."

"But of course." Francis replied, grinning sardonically. "Only Ivan's best team can bring him to his knees."

Francis began to saunter off, and Arthur stooped over to pick up the discarded rifle before following after.

* * *

Not long after the mutant Cordyceps fungus started changing people in the larger cities, a group emerged that called themselves the Fireflies.

Before radio waves stopped working altogether, Arthur ignored the men and women who acted as spokespeople for the Fireflies movement who hacked the government frequencies and streamed their message across the country. His brother Owen used to listen to their broadcasts religiously, and he and Arthur got into it on a few occasions because of their differing viewpoints.

The Fireflies fought against the quarantine zones run by what was left of the United States government, and while Arthur didn't get along with anyone who called themselves a soldier, he thought the Fireflies were doing more harm than good by adding to the chaos around them.

In the beginning, they had a large circle of supporters. Even back then, food was carefully dispersed by the soldiers who kept the best for themselves, and mass protests were common. Arthur attended his fair share of rallies at Owen's prompting, but when the authorities rolled in with their tanks, he was the first to go.

Arthur rebelled quietly, didn't cause a fuss as the Fireflies were wont to do, and that made it all the more difficult to bear when Owen finally ran off to be one of them, leaving Arthur completely alone; but that was neither here nor there.

As years passed, the Fireflies dwindled in numbers. Arthur supposed there was no way to tell how many of them were left, because of course no one was going to admit to being a rebel when questioned, but he always knew they were lurking.

His suspicions proved to be warranted when a shipment of guns that he and Francis were supposed to receive didn't show up. Ivan was their benefactor, and Arthur had just been waiting for the man to slip up and prove that he wasn't to be trusted so he and Francis could deal with him accordingly.

They slipped out of the quarantine zone and paid Ivan's warehouse a visit, which was just outside of Boston. Ivan made a run for it, but Arthur and his companion hunted the man down, learned that he'd traded their guns to the Fireflies, and promptly disposed of him.

It was one less thorn in Arthur's side, but the fun didn't stop there. After Ivan was dead and bleeding on the concrete in a darkened alleyway, a woman approached the two men from the shadows who Arthur had never seen before, only heard about in passing – Elizabeta, the leader of the Fireflies. She was a woman with long, brunette hair, wiry muscles, and eyes as green as a forest and as hard as steel. Only an idiot would purposefully get on her bad side.

Arthur had been dubious when she offered to return the guns in exchange for their help. Apparently there was something she needed smuggled out of the city, and so long as she kept her word, Arthur didn't see why not. Smuggling was what he and Francis did best, after all.

So, they followed her through the abandoned streets of Boston, under the impression that she wanted them to deliver food or ration cards or even guns that she hadn't stolen; but no, it was nothing like that.

What she wanted delivered was a person. A teenage boy, at that.

"Absolutely not." Arthur declared, eyeing the young lad standing behind Elizabeta warily. The boy didn't look any older than fifteen, and he was squeaky clean compared to the rest of them, his dark blond hair neatly parted and blue eyes shimmering behind wire frames. How he'd managed to acquire glasses, which were as rare as electricity, was beyond Arthur, but he didn't care to question it. "We're not babysitters."

"I'm not asking you to babysit him!" The woman snapped, standing tall although the blood soaking through her tank top indicated that she was badly hurt. "I need you to get him to a group of Fireflies at the Capital building. If you do that, I'll give you your guns."

"Or you could give us the guns now and save yourself the trouble." Francis said coolly, hands on his hips. Arthur could tell he was secretly intrigued, wanted to know why this boy was so special, but that wasn't their main priority. "I assure you that you do not wish to have enemies like us."

"If it helps, I don't want to go with them." The boy piped up, though he shrugged sheepishly at Elizabeta's stern look.

The leader of the Fireflies turned back to Arthur and Francis, narrowing her eyes. "No deal, no guns."

Arthur looked out the window of the small studio apartment they were standing in, weighing his options, but Francis beat him to the punch. "Alright. But I want to see the guns first. Arthur will stay with your charge."

"Excuse me?" Arthur scoffed, turning to glare at his companion. "It was your idea, you stay with him!"

"Ah, but I have no experience with children." Francis countered, which effectively shut Arthur up. "We will meet at our rendezvous point. Do not wait up."

Arthur realized that he had no say whatsoever and sighed, nodding. Elizabeta breathed out her own sigh, tinged with relief, and turned around to wrap her arms around the boy, who hugged her tightly in return. "Be good, and stick close to Arthur. Listen to everything he says, Alfred."

The boy – Alfred – nodded reluctantly. "Okay."

Elizabeta released Alfred and stepped forward, practically nose to nose with Arthur. "If anything happens to him, you're a dead man." She growled.

Arthur rolled his eyes, and then she and Francis were gone.

Once alone together, Arthur was already desperate to be rid of the boy. Alfred was watching him closely, most likely waiting for Arthur to make the first move. "Right then." Arthur grunted, taking in the boy's long-sleeved flannel shirt, jeans, and converse sneakers. He didn't even seem to have a gun. Perfect. They were going to be trekking through possibly dangerous territory and the kid was going to be absolutely useless. "Let's get moving."

"How old are you?"

"Pardon me?"

"You look kinda old." Alfred said without an ounce of shame. "You sure you can protect me out there?"

Arthur threw the boy an unimpressed look. "I've been doing this longer than you've been alive. Just shut up and follow me. No pleasantries."

Alfred frowned, looking more than a little put off. "Whatever you say."

They set off together.

* * *

The guns turned out to be legitimate, and Elizabeta had thrown in more than what Ivan promised them for their efforts; but Arthur was utterly convinced that taking Alfred with them had been a mistake.

"I know this looks bad." Alfred said slowly, pressed up against a boulder as Francis stood over him, his gun pointed directly at the boy's head. Arthur was pacing furiously just behind Francis, trying to make sense of what happened. "But I promise, I'm not infected."

"You're telling us this is wrong, then?" Arthur said, holding up the ETA meter one of the guards they killed had dropped. The soldiers used it to determine whether or not a person had the mutation in their system. After Francis returned, the three of them headed off toward the capital building, but they were spotted and detained by a few soldiers.

They had scanned Arthur and Francis and were moving on to Alfred when the teenager reacted, pulling out a knife that he'd apparently been hiding from his older companions and stabbing the soldier in the leg. Arthur had been stunned by the absurdity of it for a mere second before he and Francis made quick work of the rest of the guards.

It became apparent what Alfred had been trying to avoid when Arthur picked up the ETA meter. It had picked up traces of the virus in Alfred's system.

Elizabeta was having them smuggle an infected kid.

"It's not… wrong." Alfred said, throwing Arthur a pleading look. "But it isn't right, either. Look." He pulled up the sleeve after checking to make sure that Francis wasn't going to shoot him, and Arthur stared long and hard at the bite mark on the boy's right forearm.

"_Mon Dieu_." Francis muttered.

"It's nearly a month old!" Alfred said urgently.

"Bullshit." Arthur retorted. "The incubation period can last two days, no more. Do you think we're stupid?"

Alfred's youthful features contorted with his frustration, and Arthur thought back to how Alfred had stabbed that soldier with no hesitation. He'd misjudged the boy horrifically. It was a mistake the man wasn't used to making.

"I'm telling the truth!" Alfred snapped. "Believe me, I don't want to be one of those fuckers, and if this were recent, I'd ask you to shoot me. But it isn't, and I'm not. _It's three weeks old. _Next week will be a month."

"You are immune, then." Francis said, lowering his arms. Arthur felt a small twinge of relief, hadn't been looking forward to watching his companion kill a child. "No wonder Elizabeta was so adamant about your safety."

"She's like a sister to me." Alfred said quietly, blue eyes keen in the dark as he pushed himself to his feet slowly. "There are doctors in a lab outside the quarantine zone. They're still trying to engineer a cure or a vaccine. Elizabeta thinks they can use me."

Arthur snorted, carelessly tossing the ETA meter and crossing his arms over his chest. "Sorry, kid, but they've been looking for a cure for years. The Fireflies have made dozens of promises that they have no intention of keeping, and this doesn't seem any different."

"Well, they mean it this time!" Alfred fired back. He seemed to be coming to life before their eyes, no longer the joke cracking, smiling buffoon he'd been all day. There was no doubt in Arthur's mind that Alfred had killed before tonight, could see it in his eyes, but Alfred hadn't allowed the absurdity of their lives to fully corrupt him. Only when he was in trouble, like now, did Alfred truly wake up. "God, you're so negative!"

Francis actually started to laugh, and Arthur shot him a murderous look before the sound of roaring engines in the distance caught his attention. "Shit." Arthur muttered, stooping over to pick up his backpack, which the soldiers had stripped from him when they were caught initially. "I guess they managed to call for backup before we killed them."

"What do we do?" Alfred asked.

"What else can we do?" Arthur replied. He looked to Francis, and the Frenchman nodded slightly at Arthur's unspoken question. "We get you to the capital building."

* * *

Luck was just never on their side.

The Firefly members that were supposed to take Alfred off their hands were dead when they arrived at the capital building, the last traces of warmth leaving their bodies as blood stained the cracked and dirtied tiles. Arthur wasn't quite sure how they'd died, but he supposed it didn't really matter.

Francis was beside himself, his impeccable composure a thing of the past as he cursed furiously in French and checked the bodies of the dead men for any indication of where they might have headed after the drop-off. "Where were they taking you?" Francis demanded, whipping his head around to stare at Alfred. "Where is the lab you mentioned?"

"I don't know." Alfred replied faintly from his spot beside Arthur. The older man tried not to pay too much attention, but Alfred had been hauntingly quiet ever since they found the bodies. Arthur wouldn't put it past the boy to blame himself for the deaths of these Fireflies, though he couldn't have done a thing to prevent it. "Somewhere in the West, I think. That's what Elizabeta said."

"Let's just go back." Arthur cut in. Alfred said nothing to contradict him. "We tried, Francis. Let Elizabeta deal with him, he's not our – " He trailed off. Francis wasn't listening to him anyway, had gone back to searching the dead men's pockets.

Arthur sighed, moving forward to place a hand on his companion's shoulder. "Francis – "

The Frenchman reacted violently, spinning around and smacking Arthur's hand away. "Do not touch me!" He spat, and Arthur reared back in shock.

They stared at one another. For the first time in… _ever, _Arthur saw sorrow in Francis's blue eyes. His hair was a mess, caked in dirt and grime, blood from fighting off the infected on the way here. His skin was pale, his expression strained and desperate, and if Arthur hadn't known any better, he would've said Francis was…

"Oh, God." Alfred croaked out from somewhere over Arthur's shoulder. "He's infected."

Arthur's chest tightened. "How?"

Francis sighed, running a hand through his hair. "When the hoard of recently turned soldiers ambushed us at that intersection a few blocks from here. Arthur – "

"Let me see it." Arthur demanded, locking up his limbs to keep them from shaking. Since Owen left, he'd been so careful to not get close to anybody, to not form attachments; but then Francis had bumbled into his life, desperate enough to try to steal from Arthur but charming enough to save his own skin. He should've killed the obnoxious Frenchman back then. Anything but this.

A few moments passed before Francis reached up, pulling aside the collar of his shirt and displaying the bite, bloody and puss filled. The wound and the effects it was having on Francis's body were obviously accelerated, far worse than they should have been after only an hour since the infection was introduced to the bloodstream.

"You idiot." Arthur seethed, shaking his head. "You son of a bitch, why didn't you _say anything?_"

"Arthur, listen to me." Francis said urgently. "You need to get that boy to Owen's. He used to be part of the Fireflies, no? He will know where their lab is."

Arthur shook his head. "Don't do this to me. You _know _what's out there. Even if I try to find Owen, the kid will get himself killed long before we get there!"

"And how exactly would I get myself killed?" Alfred said stubbornly, most likely hiding his fear behind frustration. "I'm immune, and I can take care of myself."

Arthur ignored him. There were noises coming from outside, soldiers, probably the ones that had killed the Firefly operatives, come to finish the job. Arthur wasn't stupid. He knew that they didn't have much time left, and Alfred could very well be the hope mankind had been searching for over the past two decades. He would have to be stupid to not get the boy out of there safely.

But Francis…

The other man seemed fed up with Arthur's hesitation and pulled out his handgun in response to boots pounding the pavement outside. They barricaded the door after entering the building, but Arthur knew from experience that it wouldn't hold for long. "I will give you some time to get away." Francis said, jerking his head back, indicating for them to go.

Alfred hurried forward, brushing past Arthur who refused to move a muscle. "Francis – "

"Please." The Frenchman interrupted quietly, moving forward until he was standing beside Arthur, the two of them shoulder to shoulder, both facing different directions. "Ensure that my death means something. Get the boy to Owen. Can you do that for me?"

Arthur gave the other man a desperate look. So many things needed to be said between them, perhaps not in the company of a fourteen-year-old boy, but there was no time. There was _never_ enough _time, _not when Peter died or when Owen left; and especially not here, where the only friend Arthur had was facing death long before his time.

"Don't go down without a fight." Arthur said, staring straight ahead to where Alfred was waiting near the door that led into the main foyer of the building. "You've been a resilient bastard since the moment I met you, so don't stop now."

A kiss was placed fleetingly on Arthur's left cheek and then Arthur was hustling forward, drawing his gun with one hand while the other reached out to push at Alfred's shoulder, urging him through the door.

"Holy shit." Alfred breathed once they were in the foyer. Arthur shut the door behind them and, unable to find anything to block it with, headed immediately for the stairs that led to the second floor. "We just – We just _left _him there!"

"There was nothing we could have done." Arthur said, absently checking to make sure his clip was full. "You can't save everyone, Alfred."

"But I – "

Arthur shot the boy a thunderous look, and Alfred snapped his mouth shut. The older man would've liked to open his mouth and say something, but he didn't trust himself. If it weren't for Elizabeta – if it weren't for Alfred – Francis wouldn't have gotten infected, wouldn't have sacrificed himself so they had a better chance at escaping, wouldn't have _left – _

"Hurry." Was all Arthur said. "Before the soldiers come."

Arthur allowed Alfred to hurry up the stairs before him, though as he turned to follow, he heard multiple rounds of gunfire, firing from what was probably a multitude of different machine guns, the thud of a body meeting with the ground.

It seemed as if he and Francis had come full circle. There was nothing left to be said about them now.

Arthur turned and followed after Alfred.


End file.
